Weather sites are some of the most popular, if not the most popular, visited sites on the Internet. Weather affects our daily lives and it is no surprise that people use the Internet to obtain weather information. Consumers of weather information generally fall into three categories: weather enthusiasts who genuinely have an interest in weather itself, weather planners who use weather information in planning their daily lives, and those consumers who view weather as a commodity.
The conventional approach in providing weather information to all consumers is a publishing model. According to this publishing model, weather data gathered and accumulated from various sources is processed to generate the local weather conditions and in generating local forecasts. The local conditions and forecasts are then assembled into web pages for each city or location. A consumer visiting a weather site on the Internet can then enter a city or a zip code and obtain the local forecast and current conditions for that city. This conventional approach in publishing weather information is therefore highly structured along the city pages.
Weather sites, such as weather.com operated by The Weather Channel, are relatively well-suited to meet the needs of the consumers who view weather as a commodity. These consumers can go to the site, enter their city or zip code, and quickly obtain the information they desire. Weather.com goes one step farther and has a “Customize My Weather” option whereby consumers can specify the local forecasts and other weather information they desire.
The publishing model for weather information, on the other hand, is generally ill-suited to satisfy all the needs of the weather enthusiasts and also of the weather planners. Weather.com has content on its site that addresses the needs of weather planners and also the weather enthusiasts. For example, for the weather enthusiasts, weather.com has a link “learn more” where consumers can learn more about the science behind the weather and about weather safety. For the weather planners, weather.com has “Weather and . . . ” links to such things as financial forecasts, fall foliage, travel, health, golf, driving, outdoors, home and garden, events, aviation, and school day. For example, in selecting the golf link, a consumer can obtain news on golf tournaments or see weather information that may be of interest to golfers, such as lightning strikes, current temperatures, and other maps. When a consumer selects the aviation link, the consumer can obtain weather information that is of interest to aviators, such as wind conditions, jet stream forecast, and other maps. When selecting the events link, consumers can view weather information of interest to outdoor events, such as thunderstorm forecast, rainfall forecast, and temperature conditions across the country.
The weather sites on the Internet are generally focused on providing weather information and have limited content for the weather planners or enthusiasts. Furthermore, consumers generally have to go through several layers of navigation before reaching weather information that is useful for planning purposes. As is evident from the examples given above, the weather information that is available for planning purposes is generally a subset of weather information that may be of interest for planning an event or activity. Some of the weather sites are therefore cumbersome and complicated to use for weather planning purposes.
A need therefore exists for weather sites that can still satisfy the desires of the consumers who view weather as a commodity yet provide better service to the weather enthusiasts and weather planners. In some ways, the needs of the weather planners and enthusiasts are counter to those who view weather as a commodity. For those who view weather information as a commodity, these consumers want to be able to go to a site and quickly and easily obtain weather information for a particular location or region. In contrast, the weather planners and enthusiasts want more information and content available through the site. The weather sites have had difficulty in meeting the needs of the weather enthusiasts and planners since this would entail generating additional pages each hour, which would be in addition to the millions of pages are already being generated each hour for city pages.